Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., returning to the
U.S. minivan market after at least a four-year absence, will
count on a compact people mover it developed in Europe to drive
sales to the children of the American Baby Boom generation.

Ford, debuting the C-Max at next month’s Detroit auto show,
is hoping to lure young families with fuel economy it says is
the best of any minivan and a price starting below $27,220. The
U.S. will add 11 million new households in the next decade,
helping boost minivan sales 52 percent by 2012, J.D. Power said.

“New households will lead to new families looking for
affordable vehicles that can carry several passengers and
cargo,” Jeff Schuster, an auto analyst with researcher J.D.
Power & Associates in Troy, Michigan, said in an interview.
“Traditional minivans have some image problems, so Ford is not
going to market the C-Max as a minivan.”

While the C-Max van is based on Ford’s Focus small car, it
has sliding rear doors and seven seats typical of minivans. The
second-largest U.S. automaker said last year that the C-Max will
go on sale domestically in late 2011. The introduction has been
delayed until 2012, Schuster said.

The C-Max has the attributes of a traditional minivan,
“without looking like a box on wheels,” Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s
product development chief, told reporters Dec. 14 at the plant
in Wayne, Michigan, where the new Focus will start production
Jan. 3. Ford will build 10 models, including the C-Max, on the
mechanical foundation of the Focus, Kuzak said.

Ford abandoned the minivan market in 2006, when it ended
production of its Freestar model. Ford sold 46,245 Windstar and
Freestar minivans that year, while Chrysler Group LLC sold
211,140 Dodge Caravans and Honda Motor Co. sold 177,919 Odyssey
models.

‘Polarizing’ Flex

In 2008, Ford went after the people-mover market with the
boxy Flex model, which didn’t achieve the automaker’s sales
goals, Schuster said. Ford sold 38,717 Flex models last year.

“The Flex has been polarizing because of its looks -- you
either love it or hate it,” Schuster said. “It’s a large,
heavy vehicle that you aren’t buying for its fuel economy.”

The U.S. minivan market peaked at 1.4 million vehicles in
2000 and fell 70 percent to 415,173 last year, according to
researcher Autodata Corp. of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey. J.D.
Power forecast the U.S. minivan market will grow to 630,857
vehicles in 2012 as the economy recovers and the offspring of
the baby-boomer generation begin having families, Schuster said.

Ford now sees an opportunity in selling a compact minivan
that is less than 15 feet long to the boomers’ children, who are
interested in good fuel economy and a model with “a tidy
overall footprint,” Kuzak said. The C-Max is two feet shorter
the Honda Odyssey and the Dodge Grand Caravan, which each are
about 16 feet, 11 inches long.

“That very efficient size and price-point, we believe, is
well-suited to the needs of young families looking for fuel-efficient alternatives,” Kuzak said.

Sales Projections

Ford may sell as many as 50,000 C-Max models annually in
the U.S., Schuster said. That would be more than twice the sales
of Mazda Motor Corp.’s Mazda5 model, which sold 18,488 last
year, making it the top-selling compact minivan in the U.S.

The C-Max will have better fuel economy than the Mazda5,
which gets 21 miles per gallon in city driving and 28 mpg on the
highway, said Said Deep, a Ford spokesman, who declined to give
a specific figure. It will be priced between the Focus sedan,
which starts at $16,640, and the Edge crossover, which starts at
$27,220, Deep said.

The 7-seat model, known in Europe as the Grand C-Max, went
on sale in Germany, France and the Netherlands over the last six
weeks and sales data aren’t yet available, according to Astrid
Wagner, a company spokeswoman. A 5-seat version called the C-Max
went on sale in Europe last month and Ford sold about 4,600
models, Wagner said.

To create cargo space in the U.S. version of the C-Max, the
middle seat of the second row can be folded under the right-hand
seat, Ford said. The second-row seats also slide and recline.

Hands-Free Liftgate

Ford will debut a “hands-free liftgate” on the C-Max,
which enables the driver to open the back hatch with a kicking
motion beneath the rear bumper. That motion triggers two sensors
embedded in the rear bumper that set off the automatic tailgate.
The driver must be carrying the key fob to engage the sensors.

“The C-Max will be the first application of this
technology, but stayed tuned, there’s more to come,” Frank
David, vice president of product develop for Ford of Europe,
told reporters Dec. 14.

The combination of new features, low price and high mileage
may enable Ford to succeed in the minivan market this time,
Schuster said.

“The minivan segment is still viable and Ford needed to
figure it out,” Schuster said. “Maybe this will work for
them.”

Ford rose 5 cents to $16.85 at 4:01 p.m. in New York Stock
Exchange composite trading. Shares of the Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker have gained 69 percent this year.